Exemplary Figures (Fayan 法言)

Author:
Yang Xiong (Translated and introduced by Michael Nylan)

Publication Year: 
2013

Publisher: 
University of Washington Press

Abstract:

Exemplary Figures (sometimes translated as Model Sayings) is an unabridged, annotated translation of Fayan, one of three major works by the Chinese court poet-philosopher Yang Xiong (53 BCE-18 CE). Yang sought to "renew the old" by patterning these works on earlier classics, drawing inspiration from the Confucian Analects for Exemplary Figures. In this philosophical masterwork, constructed as a dialogue, Yang poses and then answers questions on philosophical, political, ethical, and literary matters. Michael Nylan's rendering of this text, which is laden with word play and is extraordinarily difficult to translate, is a joy to read-at turns wise, cautionary, and playful. 

Exemplary Figures is a core text that will be relied upon by scholars of Chinese history and philosophy and will be of interest to comparativists as well. 

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments 
Chronology of Dynasties 
Introduction 

Exemplary Figures / Fayan

1. Learning and Practicing 
2. Our Masters 
3. Cultivating One’s Person 
4. Asking about the Way 
5. Asking about Divine Insight 
6. Asking about Illumination 
7. Things Rarely Seen 
8. Every Five Hundred Years 
9. Foresight
10. Chong and Li 
11. Yan Yuan and Min Ziqian 
12. The Noble Man 
13. Honoring the Ancestors, the Ultimate Duty

Glossary of Names, Legendary and Historical 
Abbreviations 
Bibliography 
Index